Zeckhausen says that starting overweight kids on diets can trigger an obsession with food that could lead to an eating disorder. She recommends putting overweight children in a sport or becoming more active as a family and providing healthier food options.

So much this. My youngest was born a cute little ball of wrinkly pudge. She looked like a cross between a Shar Pei and the Gerber Baby. At her 1-year checkup, the doctor suggested that we put her on a diet.

When I pointed out that she had only been walking for like 6 weeks and she hadn't had a chance to burn off any of her baby fat, I was scoffed at. When my complaint reached the practice's acting board and they forced her to apologize for her behavior, she was scoffed at.

She's 18 months old now and well within the normal weight range for her height (which is off the charts).

reverendsaintjay:Zeckhausen says that starting overweight kids on diets can trigger an obsession with food that could lead to an eating disorder. She recommends putting overweight children in a sport or becoming more active as a family and providing healthier food options.

So much this. My youngest was born a cute little ball of wrinkly pudge. She looked like a cross between a Shar Pei and the Gerber Baby. At her 1-year checkup, the doctor suggested that we put her on a diet.

When I pointed out that she had only been walking for like 6 weeks and she hadn't had a chance to burn off any of her baby fat, I was scoffed at. When my complaint reached the practice's acting board and they forced her to apologize for her behavior, she was scoffed at.

I remember visiting a family friend a few years ago and I noticed that the mom was constantly talking about losing weight. Every time we sat down or talked about going to eat she'd have to pause and calculate calories and what kind of a workout she'd have to do later to zero everything out. She was already very thin and it was almost an obsession. One of my last days staying with them I was talking to her 4 year old daughter who was wearing a new outfit but didn't look comfortable in it. "Oh, is it too small or itchy?"

"No. I just look sooooo fat in this!" You constantly fret and obsess over something, your kids are going to pick up on it and normalize it for themselves.

Obvious tag needed here. Kids, especially pre-teens, normally have minor body issues. They compare themselves constantly, and the Mean Girls, to make themselves feel superior and therefore okay, wil be very vocal with their criticism of others. Combine that with the MSM 24/7 "ZOMG CHILDHOOD OBESITY EPIDEMIC" panic and you are setting kids up for disaster. It is completely healthy and normal for apetite to increase sharply and for a kid to put on weight right before a growth spurt. They stretch out and put the new weight in the right places eventually, but for a young girl who suddenly finds her skinny jeans don't fit over her new thighs, this can feel devestating. So you get calorie restricting. But the increased apetite fights this by increasing even more, so you get a ravenous kid who snaps and eats the house. Then comes the self-loathing and guilt, which leads to the purging. Then the kid thinks, "Hmm... best of both worlds. I can eat all I want and just get rid of it afterwards." Boom. Eating disorder.

I find it hard to believe that this country could get any more neurotic than it already is, but I'm a farking star of mental stability compared to the kids now. And I had eating disorders before it was cool.

The Muthaship:Just a symptom of the epidemic of sh*tty, irresponsible parenting.

Believe it or not, most parents love their children more than anything in the world. The problem is that our modern economy means that work intrudes on family time. You can't keep up with the Joneses means keeping your job. Keeping your job too often means unpaid overtime and weekends. This means less time to play with the kids and less time preparing healthy home-cooked meals. This means increased use of the devices that have become our electronic babysitters. Two generations ago the women wanted to join the workforce to escape the life of a housewife. Now most families can't afford for the woman to stay home, even if she wanted. The unending effort to squeeze every last bit of productivity from workers is killing our families. It is also winnowing the pool of available workers. If health reasons prevent you from putting in over 40hours per week you might as well be disabled.

TheWhoppah:The Muthaship: Just a symptom of the epidemic of sh*tty, irresponsible parenting.

Believe it or not, most parents love their children more than anything in the world. The problem is that our modern economy means that work intrudes on family time. You can't keep up with the Joneses means keeping your job. Keeping your job too often means unpaid overtime and weekends. This means less time to play with the kids and less time preparing healthy home-cooked meals. This means increased use of the devices that have become our electronic babysitters. Two generations ago the women wanted to join the workforce to escape the life of a housewife. Now most families can't afford for the woman to stay home, even if she wanted. The unending effort to squeeze every last bit of productivity from workers is killing our families. It is also winnowing the pool of available workers. If health reasons prevent you from putting in over 40hours per week you might as well be disabled.

TheWhoppah:Believe it or not, most parents love their children more than anything in the world. The problem is that our modern economy means that work intrudes on family time. You can't keep up with the Joneses means keeping your job. Keeping your job too often means unpaid overtime and weekends. This means less time to play with the kids and less time preparing healthy home-cooked meals. This means increased use of the devices that have become our electronic babysitters. Two generations ago the women wanted to join the workforce to escape the life of a housewife. Now most families can't afford for the woman to stay home, even if she wanted. The unending effort to squeeze every last bit of productivity from workers is killing our families. It is also winnowing the pool of available workers. If health reasons prevent you from putting in over 40hours per week you might as well be disabled.

My littlest eats like he has a tapeworm, yet looks like he has never seen food. He has the metabolism of a squirrel on crack, and wakes up hyper, runs non-stop all day. I swear he eats and I gain the weight. I hope it never changes, because right now he's obsessing over shredded vegetables on everything.

If you didn't scream about eating disorders over every possible media outlet and analyze them down to ridiculous levels, PLUS rant on and on about how nearly everything you eat can make you into a lard arse, kids might have a chance.

As a kid, I had options with food. Eat anything I wanted, within limits for 'bad stuff' like candy, TV dinners (having just come out) were a rare treat, so was going to a fast food restaurant -- which did NOT supersize anything.

My Mom made the majority of our meals from fresh ingredients. Us kids were also booted out of the house to go and play in the fresh air and sunshine. The school cafeteria food was not subcontracted out to a mass production company and was good. There were no soda or snack machines on campus.

Physical education was a must. Tons of kids rode bikes to and from school.

I was in Boy Scouts and the frequent camping trips wore me happily out. No camp stoves. We carried sheath knives and hand axes. Hiked a lot. Cut our own wood for fires. Swam. Canoed. Kept our camp sites clean and often cleaned or repaired the Scout Camp Grounds. Plus we played vigorous games, like Capture the Flag.

Now, how much of the above has been advertised on the media as being bad for kids?

All of it.

Plus kids get conflicting information: apples are healthy -- then apples are infested with salmonella. Fresh veggies are healthy -- then fresh veggies will kill you because of bug spray, bacteria, mercury or lead contamination.

Don't go outside. The sun will turn you into a seething mass of cancer, the air is poison, nearly every insect out there wants to eat your arse and don't forget the pervs and criminals hiding behind every bush just waiting to grab you.

Don't go swimming. The waters are dangerous. Either polluted, infested with brain eating parasites, assorted poisonous sea creatures, toothy sharks, full of sewage, and behind every sand dune is a perv waiting to snatch you.

Physical education is no longer mandatory. Many Scout troops, for insurance reasons, no longer allow their kids to carry anything bigger than a pocket knife -- if that and campfires pollute, consume natural resources, can cause cancer and parents will sue if their kid gets a mild burn.

Plus the long standing Boy Scout image is being tarnished these days over any form of scandal that can be thrown at them, making kids less eager to join up.

Then your fast food companies have expertly advertised their products to make them seem delicious, healthy, fun and popular. They even toss in prizes. The more tasty crap they can squeeze on a bun, the better.

Kids are faced with so much conflicting information these days that it's no wonder so many develop physical and mental problems.

Anorexia and Bulimia were unheard of when I was a kid. Vigorous play made being obese a rarity. Bicycles were a must have and a status symbol. Schools were NOT run by lawyers. Nor were they worried about offending everyone for everything. Guards and fences were NOT needed to keep drug dealers and gang members out.

Ricketts had been defeated by adding Vitamin D to whole milk, encouraging exposure to sunshine and every kid had vaccinations which they were assured would keep them safe from deadly diseases. (And, did.) You could NOT put your kid in school without them.

Oh, we had teachers in high school diddling the hormonal kids, but the media did not act like it was a plague upon the earth and schools handled it quietly. Kids also knew when to keep their mouths shut. (No teen guy that I knew would go to the cops over having a fling with a hot, older female teacher.)

Yeah. We keep throwing so much at kids today that I'm surprised many of them don't just find a nice, safe corner, crawl into it and go catatonic.

Kids are NOT little adults. They're KIDS, impressionable, curious, full of energy, low on common sense and tend to see the world differently. They experiment, they copy and their emotions are all over the place. They can easily take things out of context. Plus, the teen years are hard on them because of their bodily changes on their way to becoming adults and their emotions are still forming.

I'm a food service director at a private school in a rather wealthy DC suburb and I can tell you point blank that the things helicopter parents are doing to their children's eating habits go far beyond this "reward system" issue that you hear about in the article.

We have one girl who will only eat about 20 different items, 16 of which are junk food (goldfish crackers, pretzels, chips, salami, etc). Her parents decided it was easier to just give her what she wanted to eat rather than teach her to eat normal things.

We have yet other kids who have been taught to shun gluten even though they don't have coeliac disease. Their mothers (most of whom are stay-at-home trophy wives who get bored and discover "causes") seem to think that gluten is bad for you, even if you don't have coeliac disease or a gluten allergy. The same kind of people who don't take their kids to get vaccinations because of that dumb biatch McCarthy.

tallen702:We have yet other kids who have been taught to shun gluten even though they don't have coeliac disease. Their mothers (most of whom are stay-at-home trophy wives who get bored and discover "causes") seem to think that gluten is bad for you, even if you don't have coeliac disease or a gluten allergy. The same kind of people who don't take their kids to get vaccinations because of that dumb biatch McCarthy.

Many of these parents think gluten is linked to autism (as you noted the McCarthy connection)...

But there is some evidence (as with all these things, the jury is really still out) that gluten spikes your insulin levels, which promotes fat retention. For this reason, I've personally cut about 90% of the gluten I used to eat out of my diet, and try to maintain high-fiber off of veggies, fruits, and whole grains. It's... challenging.